Nature Versus Nurture
by Sunsetter Nymphetamine
Summary: Sherlock had looked forward to graduating and starting his own life, where he could amuse himself without playing to the rules of society. He responds to an advertisement asking for participants in a psychological study. Unfortunately for him, the psychologist conducting the study is not so much interested in gathering data as he is in molding the data to fit his hypothesis.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: So, this was never actually supposed to be written, much less posted, but my friends are pushy. Warnings: Kidnap, torture, brainwashing, you get the gist.

0o0o0o0o0

"Nothing here," the man whispered, running his index finger down a page of notes. "Nothing—nothing!" He slammed the folder shut and pounded its leather surface with a closed fist. "Why is there never any connection? There has to be!" Snarling, he picked up the folder and hurled it across the room, wrinkled pages spilling out the sides as it hit the polished wooden wall of his study and fell pathetically to the floor. The man paid it no mind; he rose from his overstuffed chair and stalked towards the filing cabinet in the corner, digging through the sparse collection of files. "There's a connection. There has to be," he muttered, wrenching folders out seemingly at random and throwing them haphazardly in the direction of his desk. "Not this one, not this one—damnit, there has to be something. Anything! If I can just—"

It was clear that he would find nothing. With a groan that bordered on a wail, he sank to the floor, pounding a fist childishly in the worn carpet. It could do with a cleaning; indeed, the entire office was a mess of tracked in dirt and old coffee stains, its air reeking of neglect. The man buried his face in his hands, desperation seeming to radiate from his body. "Why?" he whispered finally, clutching at his hair and pulling at it, seemingly oblivious to his actions. "I know there's a connection. I know it! My life's work—" He groaned again, slumping forward until he was nearly prostrate on the floor.

"I have to do it," he muttered, his words slurring together slightly. "My life's work, my entire reason for living, if I can't find the right connection, it was all for nothing. Look at them, all those people who said I couldn't do it!" He laughed, but there was no mirth in the noise. "I'll show them they were wrong. They are wrong! We can understand this, it's all so simple—it just has to be proven!" He slammed his fist against the filing cabinet, adding yet another dent to the myriad that adorned its surface. The cabinet creaked in protest, but the hardy thing would have never survived its owner if it could not handle a few blows now and again.

Trembling, the man rose and made his way back to his desk, trembling and stumbling over loose papers and cracked leather folders. With a sigh, he sank into his chair and leaned forward, clearing the debris from off of his keyboard. The old desktop computer whined and whirred as he turned it on, bypassing the warnings that it had been improperly shut down the last time he had used it. "No funding, no grants, not even a good word for my name—damn it all, I'm going to have to rely on volunteers," he growled, pulling up his word processor and hammering away at the keyboard. "I'll show them. I don't care how. I'll prove it—they'll never say it can't be done. I can prove it! Even if they don't give me a chance!"

He sat in silence for a few moments, and then returned to his writing. When he had finished, he read it over a few times, making edits where they were needed until he had produced a perfectly innocuous piece of writing. He rubbed a hand over his bloodshot eyes and reached through the mess of papers, digging through them until he saw the edge of his most recent bank statement. He scanned the paper briefly, checking the balance on his main account. It was low, far lower than he would have liked. He was going to have to sell the house if he could not produce publishable results in enough time—and he couldn't stand that. The house was all he had left of his own, the only thing that was his and his alone, not to be shared or fretted over or even known of by friend or family or wife.

Still, there was enough money in his bank account to place an advertisement in the local newspaper. He had done this often enough that he had the appropriate email address memorized. With a growl, he pulled up his email account and typed away furiously, pasting the document he had just finished into the body of the email, and attaching it just in case—he could afford to have nothing left to chance here. His livelihood, his reputation—everything he had was on the line with this. He could not afford to fail, not now.

0o0o0o0o0

Three months after graduating from college and moving to London, Sherlock already had his routine down. Wake up in the morning, run down to the shop on the corner to pick up a bagel, coffee, and the newspaper; eat breakfast, have a smoke, briefly check his investments, read the newspaper and scan for anything interesting—not that there was ever anything interesting; the rest of the day was spent in vain attempts to amuse himself. It was all so dull, so ordinary—nothing that he would have ever imagined himself doing in his plans for his life. His internship with the local psychiatrist's office had ended several weeks ago, and the stimulation he had hoped he would find there had not been forthcoming. People were so petty, with their tiny concerns and their small minds, never anything new and interesting. They were all the same, and the several months he had spent as an intern had only served to destroy any thoughts he had had about actually going into the psychiatric field. In the end, he had been left with a graduate degree in psychology that he had no interest in using, and what looked like a seemingly endless life of boredom and monotony.

It was with reluctance that he pulled himself out of bed and made his way to the shop. The cashier recognized him coming in and already had his cigarettes in her hand by the time he reached the cash register, coffee in hand, bagel and newspaper tucked under his arm. She no longer bothered asking him for his ID; she knew full well that he was of age, the number of times he came into the store. With a polite smile and a quick thank you, Sherlock was out of the shop and back onto the street in a span of only a few minutes. Well, he supposed he had nothing better to do than eat his breakfast and thumb his way through the paper yet again. How perfectly dull.

Some scandal involving a politician, a few sports players suspended for their conduct—the newspaper was full of uninteresting stories, scrounged up to fill space and keep the news industry afloat. Sherlock paused to read a short piece about a girl found drowned in her bathtub by her parents, but it was cut and dry, already solved, and lacking in the sorts of details that would actually make for an interesting story. Within half an hour he had read all the news of the day, and was onto the obituary section. He lit a cigarette, skimming through the obituaries to see if there was anything of note, but nothing interesting popped up. He sighed and closed the page, flipping it over to look at the advertisements in the back. One or two times he had seen ads of interest, but for the most part they were all the same—used cars for sale, missing cats, job offers.

The only thing of note today was an advertisement placed for volunteers in a psychological study. Accepting people of all backgrounds—men and women; people of any racial, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds would be considered. There was no mention of the point of the study, only that hours were flexible and the person who had placed the ad was willing to accept anyone who could make time for it. No doubt it was a grad student who realized that he or she was late in forming a thesis. Sherlock skimmed it over a few times, before throwing the paper down with a sigh. It did not seem like it would be terribly interesting, but nothing else in his life was—maybe this study would surprise him.

In any case, he supposed may as well see what it was all about. It was not as if he had anything better to do.


	2. The Meeting

The man on the other end of the phone had seemed excited, eager to meet with Sherlock at any time he had available. Sherlock was surprised to note that the man did not seem like a graduate student; from what he had said, he had done research before, although he had no publications of note. A failed psychologist, then, someone who dabbled in research but was entirely incompetent at his job. It was not with high hopes that Sherlock approached the stately brick building that the man had listed in his ad. Clearly, if he was running studies at his home, he was either unemployed or so menial in position that he could not run this study in his workplace. A cursory search on the man's name had come up with a few mentions of help in research with professors in college, but apart from his name on studies published by professors, it seemed he was telling the truth about having yet to publish anything on his own—at least, nothing of enough note that the local library kept it in its archives. However, his name checked out that he was a real person and a student of psychology, rather than simply some dabbler who fancied himself a psychologist, so Sherlock supposed that he was not entirely without credibility.

The door opened almost before he could knock, and Sherlock found himself looking into the eyes of a disheveled man, his suit rumpled as though he had been wearing it for several days straight, his hair a greasy mess that suggested it had been some time since he had last showered. His bloodshot brown eyes were almost too steady for his fidgety body, at odds with his chewed fingernails and trembling hands. "Sherlock Holmes, is it?" he asked, his voice high and breathy. "Doctor Bridge, pleased to make your acquaintance. Come in, come in!" he said, voice fast and almost slurred, though there was no trace of alcohol on his breath. He stepped aside, revealing a dark hall in need of some serious cleaning. Sherlock made the mental note to keep his shoes on; he would be washing his socks for days if he stepped foot on that floor in them.

Doctor Bridge led the way from the hall into the living room. "Absolutely marvelous that you could come this soon, just wonderful Sherlock. Sit, sit!" he babbled, nearly pushing Sherlock into the couch. "Tea? Coffee? Would you like any refreshments?" he asked, standing nervously by the couch, hovering annoyingly close to Sherlock.

"No," Sherlock responded, appraising his surroundings. He supposed he could not say this man was completely non-intellectual—unless he had a penchant for buying well-read first editions of books and half-disintegrated classics. The entire room was lined with bookshelves, lacking a television and other furnishings common to most living rooms. "Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, meeting his eyes.

"Oh—well, let me open a window," Doctor Bridge said after a short pause. He scurried over to the window, flinging back dusty curtains and sliding the window open as far as it would go. "I don't have an ashtray—I'll just run find you a cup, or something."

"Very good," Sherlock said, settling back into the couch. A very strange man indeed—Sherlock was not certain how he could afford this house and all those books with his lack of professional accomplishments. Perhaps he came from money, or did have a practice somewhere? No, he could not have a practice—that would have come up in his search on the man's name. Fidgety, as though he was not terribly confident, or perhaps nervous, but surprisingly direct in his actions and gaze, as though he wished to be taken seriously—very strange overall. Sherlock was having difficulty in placing the man. Perhaps if he were better at reading people, a skill he had been trying to master with limited success ever since he had realized that other people were terribly boring in their surface level interactions, he would be able to better form an idea of who Doctor Bridge was, and what he was even attempting to accomplish in this study.

He barely glanced up as the doctor hurried back into the room, a chipped mug with deeply ingrained coffee stains clutched in his hand. "There you are—use this," he said, stuffing the mug into Sherlock's hand and scuttling around the coffee table, settling down in an armchair he had clearly pulled around to face the couch for this purpose alone. "Now, why don't you tell me about yourself."

Sherlock paused to pull out his pack of cigarettes, light one, and take a drag. "Sherlock Holmes, twenty-two years old, PhD in psychology," he said, meeting Doctor Bridge's eyes. "Before we go any further, what is your study about? I would hate to get involved in something without knowing what it is."

"Oh—of course!" Doctor Bridge laughed, his voice slightly grating. He fidgeted, crossing and uncrossing his hands several times before replying. "I am looking for patterns in behavior common to humanity in general, regardless of any of our differentiating characteristics. In essence, I am interested in the whole idea of nature versus nurture. You're a psychology student, so I suppose I do not need to explain that concept to you."

"Clearly," Sherlock agreed, tapping his cigarette ash into the coffee mug.

"Well, I am interested in finding out about the lives of my subjects up to this point—how they were raised, their life's circumstances, that sort of thing. Then I wish to know about their general behavior, their beliefs, their morals, what sorts of things they find appropriate, and how they live their lives versus how they would like to live their lives. Anything that appears constant across race, culture, class, gender, and any other category we have come up with as a people—I would think that this sort of thing can be considered a natural part of humanity. Things that seem to fit along one category of people but not others can be considered fodder for study into nurture, and things that seem to be singular to individuals would need further examination to determine whether they are the result of nature or nurture."

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise. Of course—he had gotten his hopes too high in thinking that there was even a chance that this study would be interesting. "That seems rather broad and poorly designed," he said frankly, busying himself with his cigarette. "You could find hundreds of other studies that deal with the exact same concept, but are better designed and have a more focused point to them."

For some reason, that seemed to make Doctor Bridge happy; he threw his head back and half roared with laughter. "Well, that's very frank of you Mr. Holmes! Thank you," he said when he had regained enough control of himself to speak. "It's true, this study is so much in the preliminary that it lacks focus. I can't very well determine the focus of the study without data, now can I?"

"Isn't that generally the point of studies?" Sherlock asked, mildly surprised by the doctor's reaction. "You're leaving a lot open to bias by narrowing the focus only after you have collected the data you need. Not a terribly efficient way to do anything more than prove a point. This is the sort of study designed by someone trying to prove a point he already has in mind." There was no need to qualify that, Sherlock thought. There was no other reason to run a study so broad and poorly constructed; this was the study of a man with an agenda, desperate to get something, anything, out in the professional world. It was a pity that he had already wasted so much of his time. With a sigh, Sherlock pocketed his cigarettes and tapped out his cigarette on the edge of the coffee cup. "Thank you for your time, but I am afraid that I am not interested."

"Wait, wait!" For the first time, Doctor Bridge seemed entirely uncomfortable, almost desperate, a good several notches above his previous state of nervousness. "Just—just give me a few sessions worth of time. You said on the phone that any time works for you because you have little going on in your personal life. Does it really hurt to stay for a few sessions, just for some preliminary data gathering?"

"I do not want my name attached to such a fraudulent study," Sherlock said, rising from the couch. "I would rather not tarnish my own name, and my own chances of getting a job in the field, simply because you are desperate to publish something."

"I'll be leaving my subjects unnamed, of course! Anonymity and that sort of thing, it's very important in this sort of study. Your name will be completely unattached to my work, don't worry!" Doctor Bridge rose from the chair, nearly knocking the coffee table over in the process, and moved as though to block the entryway to the living room. "Just stay for a couple of sessions, and if you're still against it, I will not ask you to come back."

Sherlock paused. The man looked desperate; he must have not had many calls back apart from Sherlock's own, if he was so frantic to keep Sherlock in the study that he would actually try to block him in. Something was off about it. Still, if his name would be kept out of the study… "Very well. I have little else to do. Keep my name out of the study, and if you fix it up so that it's something reasonable within the first couple sessions, I'll stay on. If you still seem to be seeking to fit some agenda after that point, then I'm not involving myself in it anymore. Is that clear?"

"Very." Doctor Bridge seemed to relax a little; he moved from the doorframe and stood behind his chair. "You know," he said after a short pause, "that reaction actually tells me a fair amount about you, Sherlock."

"Oh?" Sherlock asked dispassionately, sitting back down on the couch. "Do tell."

Doctor Bridge smiled, examining Sherlock with his unnervingly steady eyes. "You fancy yourself a moral person, or at least an ethical one, when it comes to things that interest you. However, that's all for show; you're only ethical when someone is looking. A part of you feels guilty about that and wants to compensate for it by forcing yourself to act ethical even when you don't need to, hence your qualifier that if I do not shape up my study, you will leave. You value yourself over other people, even over proper knowledge and procedure, which is why you will stay in this study even though you think that my set-up is improper. You're bored, and you'll do anything, even violate your own ethical code, in order to stave off the boredom."

Sherlock had not taken his eyes off the other man's throughout the entire little speech. "Nice attempt at analysis, doctor," he said, giving a small smile. "However, I'm afraid that you're wrong about me. I keep to an ethical code not because I worry what other people will think of me, but because I think it would be a travesty to pollute the intellectual world with false conclusions. I do wish to stave off my boredom, but I was not making an empty threat; if you do not shape up your study, I will not participate in it. It's clear that you are working on this independently. You have no funding, no support, no promised publishers, so you need to throw out a really big fish in order to assure that you get published. Stop focusing on being published, start focusing on learning, and I will gladly stay on, but if you don't, I am not lying about ending my association with you. Are we clear?"

"Very much so," Doctor Bridge said, a strange smile playing about his lips. He moved from behind the chair and sat into it, leaning forward and bracing his clasped hands on the rickety coffee table. "Now then, since you are staying on for the moment, why do you not start by telling me about yourself? Not those details about your name and your age; I need to know about you, and who you are."


	3. Patterns

A/N: Office jobs are evil things that take away my motivation to update my stories. Damnit, being a responsible adult is overrated.

Warnings: Drugs, kidnap.

* * *

Only three respondents. Three was not enough for a study, and he knew it. The man sighed and rubbed his eyes, leaning his head down to rest it on his desk. Three respondents, and a study that he had no hope of publishing. Sherlock Holmes was right; it was a poorly designed study, but it had never been his intention of going forth with it anyways. He was just lucky that the cocky young man had not picked up on his intentions; he was clearly very bright, to have a PhD at 22. But he was self-absorbed and clearly not accustomed to dealing with other people.

Sherlock Holmes. Bright to a fault, easily bored, but ethical. It was the other man's sense of ethics that made him think that he did not fit the bill entirely for sociopathy—but if he could figure out what made him the way he was, then Sherlock might be a start to proving that he was right. The man was clearly a loner; he rarely mentioned other people, bringing up his family only in passing, and mostly in reference to his childhood; only one or two mentions of peers had slipped into their conversation. Isolated, a natural loner, new to London and without connections in the area—oh, it was a dream case. Not quite in the realm of sociopathy, but so close, that if he was correct—and of course he was, he knew it—it would take only a light push to ensure that the man fit that categorization for the rest of his life.

Nature versus nurture; it was the age old debate, a debate that had gripped him ever since it was first brought up in his high school psychology class. Let his classmates blither on about combinations of the two, about humans having certain biological chemistry that made them do some things but not others, that made some people some way when others were a different way. It was so variable, and so clearly wrong! From the first time the debate had been brought up, he had known, simply _known, _that human behavior was the product of their environment. It was all so clear to him; it was the answer to every ethnic struggle and racial disparity, to why women acted one way and men acted another—it explained all the exceptions to the rule. It was all about being raised and socialized, and people who escaped it were the ones who proved it. And the people who were truly different, truly wrong—they were the ones who had been shafted by their environment. Lack of emotion, lack of regard for others—it was all the fault of a poor environment and experiences, and all he needed to do was prove he was right!

Sherlock Holmes was the key. All it would take was a little push in one direction or the other, and he would have his perfect case study. Sherlock Holmes, the slightly odd but harmless loner, the man who kept to himself but had a strong sense of ethics, turned into Sherlock Holmes, the emotionless monster, the man who would do anything for himself and nothing that was not for himself. It would be perfect. He could prove it, and clearly he was meant to prove it. Why else would such a perfect specimen have simply fallen into his lap? No, it was a sign, a gift, proof that he was right, that his research was meant to succeed, that he was meant to go ahead with his research and prove once and for all that he was correct, that he had known the answer all along.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Boring," he muttered, flipping through the newspaper. "Boring. Boring. Is that—no. Boring." Sherlock sighed and closed the paper, tossing it in the general direction of the recycling bin. It fell a good ten feet short, and he could not bring himself to get up and actually put it in the bin. He would get to it later, he supposed. His fingers itched to pick up his violin, but he did not wish to start associating the instrument with monotony. He had his third interview with Doctor Bridge later that day, but there was nothing to do in the meantime, and if things continued as they had been, the interview itself would hardly be a break from the dullness of everyday life.

With a sigh, Sherlock picked up a book from the haphazardly stacked pile near his bed. He had read them all at least seven times, but he felt no desire to get up and make his way to the library, and he had probably read anything interesting that the library stocked in any case. Listlessly, he thumbed through the tome, scanning the pages but not taking in any of the words. He knew them all by heart anyways. Perhaps it was time to take up another hobby. Woodworking, or painting, perhaps. Or he could just run away and join the circus as a juggler, for all the appeal any of those sorts of things held for him.

Sherlock wallowed in his self-pitying boredom for another hour or so before he tired of feeling sorry for himself. Even that was boring. He tossed the book back onto its pile and rose, stretching his long legs, savoring the feeling of kinks popping in his spine. A walk might clear his head, or at least give him something useful to do. He could practice his little hobby of attempting to figure people out from a glance. He had been getting better at it the past few weeks, for lack of anything better to do. He was fairly certain he could profile a person's general profession at a glance, though he would need more study to determine if he was right, or if he was simply getting cocky. And profession was only one aspect of a person; if he ever wanted to be what he could consider "good" at this, he would need much more practice. It was not perfect in staving off boredom, but it was a far cry better than re-reading books he had memorized or sitting around feeling sorry for himself.

He wandered in the general direction of Doctor Bridge's house, taking in as much of his surroundings as he could at a glance. His mental map of London was nearly perfect now, but every now and then there was a surprise, something that he could not afford to have if he wanted to claim that he knew the city perfectly. There were still shops that he could not name without seeing them or neighborhoods that he would get lost in if he was dropped off in them, and that was a reality that he refused to accept. Slightly after general lunch hours, the streets were not as full as they could have been, but still he witnessed wave after wave of humanity bustling about from shops to cars, houses to taxis, businesses to restaurants. What was in common between people who took cars versus public transport? Who came out of what buildings, and why? How could one determine what they did at a glance? Sherlock observed, filing away every detail he could catch in his brain for later—for what reason, he still was not sure, but it was fascinating. Maybe he could find a way to make a life out of this—it was a dream, an ideal, but it was more interesting than any conventional life, and certainly more interesting than dealing with people directly.

It was with great reluctance that Sherlock pulled himself away from his people watching to finish the trek to Doctor Bridge's house. Perhaps if the man ever had anything interesting to say or ask it would not have been such an annoyance, but Sherlock was quickly losing any drive he had ever had to continue going along to these ask sessions. It was clear that the man was incompetent as a researcher, far too interested in the results than in the process.

The doctor was fidgety as normal when he opened the door. "Sherlock, excellent! Come in, you know where the living room is by now."

Sherlock nodded curtly and made his way to the living room. The window was shut today—unusual, considering the stained coffee cup was set out in front of the couch, ready for use as an ashtray. Doctor Bridge followed him in not a moment later, a glass of water in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. "I know you always say not to bother with refreshments, but I remember saying you like coffee with sugar," he said with a smile, pushing it in Sherlock's direction. "I do hope I made it correctly to your tastes."

Sherlock nodded, ignoring the coffee for the time being. Doctor Bridge's smile faltered briefly; he then shook himself and looked at Sherlock again, grin firmly in place. "Well! I do not have a list of questions prepared today, but I think we have well covered your childhood and adolescence, and your life as it is today. So now, instead of asking about practical things, I think I'd like to ask about your thoughts on morality and other such matters. As you have said before, you consider yourself a fairly ethical person."

"Correct," Sherlock said calmly, lighting a cigarette. "I see no point in being otherwise." He paused, and took a sip of the coffee.

"Now, do tell me—do you have any exceptions to this rule? Any instances you can think of where ethics can be thrown by the wayside in order to get things done?"

Sherlock paused to think for a moment. "That depends on your definition of ethics," he answered finally, taking another swig of coffee. Goodness it tasted awful. He wondered if the man's coffee maker was broken, or if his water supply was contaminated.

"How would you define ethics?" Doctor Bridge asked, staring intently at Sherlock. His stare, always steady, seemed more focused than normal. Interesting. Sherlock did not think that the questions were more meaningful than the ones from the other interviews.

"Hmmm. I suppose ethics would be doing things with the intent to not deceive, attempting to help where possible and hurt the fewest people you can." That was not a sufficient answer, and he knew it, but for some reason he was having trouble coming up with anything else to say.

"So do you think it is acceptable, even ethical, to hurt people in certain circumstances?" That stare, he was still giving him that unsettling stare.

"I—yes," Sherlock said. He jumped as the ash from his cigarette fell onto his pants—he had nearly forgotten he was holding it. "Damn!" he hissed, fumbling as much of the ash as he could into his hand and brushing it into the coffee mug. "Sorry." He took a hasty drag from his cigarette—maybe the nicotine would clear his mind. "If it's for the greater good—I mean, if it's protecting other people, directly or indirectly, then yes. Or if a person has committed certain crimes, murder or something along those lines, then they should be harshly punished. I would consider that ethical, yes." Dear god, when had he become so ineloquent?

Doctor Bridge spent a few minutes taking notes—Sherlock wondered how he could have so much to write about that one answer. Annoyance began to build as the minutes ticked on and Doctor Bridge did not look up. He was starting to feel funny, slightly ill, and the sooner he got back to his flat, the better. Just as he was about to open his mouth and demand that the doctor move on, the man set his clipboard down and looked quizzically at him again.

"Are you all right, Sherlock?" he asked politely, scanning his face. "You're looking a little bit off."

"Forgive me, I must be coming down with something," Sherlock answered as politely as he could. If the old fool had not taken so long writing down notes… "I think we should cut this short though. If we could reschedule—"

"What, and you walk home like this? I would not even trust you to catch a cab." Doctor Bridge briskly picked up his clipboard. "Lie down and see if it passes. I'll be back in just a moment."

That made Sherlock uneasy, but he also noticed a curious inability to move properly. He struggled to get a handle on the situation—this did not feel like ordinary sickness. It had set on far more quickly than any illness he had ever contracted, and try as he might, he could not think of any disease or virus that had any of the symptoms he was experiencing. He felt less as though he were ill and more as if he had been drugged—

Drugged. It was a bolt of realization in his befuddled mind. He had been drugged, and he had to get out of the house before Doctor Bridge came back. Sherlock summoned up all of his willpower and dragged himself off the couch. The room swayed around him as he stumbled forward. His coat caught on the coffee table; he pulled at it and watched in shock as the rickety coffee table gave out, spilling the drinks and the makeshift ashtray onto the floor with a clatter. It was unlikely that Doctor Bridge had missed the sound; he had to hurry if he wanted to make it out before the doctor came back. He placed a hand on the doorframe and pushed himself out into the hall, colliding with the doctor almost instantly. Doctor Bridge caught him before he fell, his look of concern gone.

"What did you give me?" Sherlock asked, his voice slurring ridiculously. He sounded drunk, he guessed, though he had never gotten entirely drunk in his life. A bit tipsy, sure, but—no, damn, there went his thoughts again. He had to stay focused!

"Rohypnol," Doctor Bridge answered calmly. He wasn't trembling anymore, though it could be that Sherlock's vision was impacted by the drug. "It was necessary. I doubt you would agree to my requirements—but your agreement isn't important right now. I must say, you've been very difficult to catch, Sherlock Holmes. Always so alert, so aware, to distrustful of everyone around you."

Sherlock struggled to find a response, but Doctor Bridge seemed to be done talking. He slipped his arm under Sherlock's and hauled him to a more upright position. "Come along, there's a good boy," he said patronizingly, dragging Sherlock down the hall to a padlocked door. "Where's the damn key," he cursed, fumbling briefly around in his pockets before he produced a tiny key and unlocked the door. He pulled it open to reveal a set of stairs that led to another locked door. "Can't be too careful, I'm afraid. Fortunately, this is one of the perks of coming from a family with money—special rooms of all sorts built into the house."

So it was family money that was keeping this man afloat. Sherlock wanted to speak, to say that he knew it had to have been wealth rather than salary that funded this man's life, but the words he wanted to use refused to come to mind. Instead, he settled for refusing to move his body, forcing the doctor to half drag, half carry him down the stairs. There was a padlock on the inside of the door; the doctor unceremoniously dumped Sherlock at the bottom of the stairs and walked up to secure it. He repeated this ritual with the other door, and dragged Sherlock into the pitch-black room on the other side.


	4. Chapter 4

When Sherlock had thought that he might like something to cure his boredom, this was far from what he had had in mind.

Doctor Bridge flicked on the light to reveal a room that resembled a makeshift laboratory. Some of the equipment seemed to be materials purchased for scientific reasons; others, like the large mahogany table in the middle of the room, thrown in there haphazardly to serve some sort of purpose that Sherlock did not want to think about. "Are you the next Seligman, then?" he asked, having nothing wittier to say. Somehow he did not think he could bargain or intimidate his way out of this situation.

Doctor Bridge smiled, a truly happy smile that did not fit the situation in the slightest. "Not quite. My research is greater than his ever was—than any research before me. You're a very lucky man, Sherlock Holmes. You get to take part in the greatest research ever done."

"I doubt that," Sherlock slurred, casting around for a better retort and coming up empty.

The doctor ignored him. "The world will thank me, in the end," he muttered, dragging Sherlock towards a large object covered with a sheet. "They'll see. You get to help me prove myself. There's a reason you, of all people, responded to my ad. The world wants me to succeed." He drew back the sheet, revealing a large cage—the dog crate for a mastiff, perhaps, bolted to the floor, adorned with padlocks at every possible junction. Doctor Bridge unlocked the one holding the door in place and pushed Sherlock down, towards the cage. "Go on now, in you go," he urged, shoving at him. When Sherlock attempted to push back, he growled and half threw him in the cage. "You have a higher purpose, Sherlock!" he shouted at the dazed man. "You're the subject of the greatest research ever done! Now cooperate with me!"

"Go to hell," Sherlock growled, pushing feebly at the door of the cage, his strength still receding. How long did Rohypnol last? He wished he could remember."

Doctor Bridge grinned again, and this time the smile was not so much unnerving as frightening. "Good," he crooned, reaching through the bars and patting Sherlock's foot. He did not seem to mind when Sherlock jerked his leg away from the offending hand. "That's it. Tap into that rage, that contempt. I'd love to stay and work with you, but unfortunately," he sighed, checking his watch pointedly, "I have another interview in an hour, and I have to clean up the living room that you so rudely destroyed. Don't worry—this subject isn't special in the slightest. You're the only one who gets to take part in the true experiment." With those parting words, he turned and walked away, turning out the light as he left and leaving Sherlock in darkness. There was the sound of him fumbling with the padlock outside the door, and then his footsteps moved away, until finally there was silence.

It seemed to take an age for the drug to wear off, although in his rational mind, Sherlock knew that it was only a few hours. He knew that at some point he started screaming, alternately roaring his rage and yelling for help, but he must have been completely off on his time frame, or Bridge had found a way to convince his next participant that the screams were of no consequence. The first scenario was more likely; his sense of time was off, anyways. Eventually, throat raw and sore, Sherlock ceased his yells—better to save his strength. He struggled to get his breathing under control, to think, to figure a way out of his situation. When his head finally seemed to have cleared, he tested the locks, the bars, anything to find a weak point. There was none, as he had expected, but he was none the worse for trying. Shakily, he tried to take stock of his current situation.

He had been drugged, locked away in a cage in the basement of a man who seemed to have designed a study precisely for this purpose. All those questions about his life and ethics—those had just been a front. He wished he could remember clearly what had happened, but his memory of the exact details of the kidnapping was fuzzy, a result of the drug, no doubt. If he remembered correctly, and he was certain he did, Rohypnol was one of those drugs that impaired the memory—Bridge had likely chosen it for precisely that reason. The main question to which he could not pinpoint an answer was why on earth Bridge was doing this, and why he had chosen Sherlock of all people.

Bridge had left the sheet off of the cage, but the room was so dark, Sherlock could not examine his surroundings properly. Metal cage with a solid floor covered in locks—he remembered seeing a table, but that was all of note that he could pull up from his blurry recollection of the kidnapping. He could only come up with one thing he could know for certain: Bridge was a dangerous man. He would have to play along, try to earn the man's trust, or at least try to keep him from snapping. Never before had Sherlock Holmes feared for his life, but never before had he been in a situation where he was at the mercy of an apparent psychopath. He searched his pockets—a handful of change, half a pack of cigarettes, lighter—nothing that could help him out of his situation. There was no way that his lighter was strong enough to melt through the bars even of this cage, and if he could, what then? He was still trapped, stuck in a room behind two doors padlocked from the outside. Sherlock knew his strength well enough to know that he could spend all his energy whaling away at the door, and perhaps he could get rid of one, but there was no way that he would get to the second one before Bridge came back and found a more permanent way of incapacitating him.

Sherlock sighed, defeated, and flicked the lighter on anyways. If nothing else, he could get a better sense of what the room held.

It seemed at a glance like an innocuous laboratory, but there was a sinister air to the place that unnerved him greatly. The mahogany table in the center of the room shone where the weak light bounced off it, taking up the majority of the place. A few scattered beakers sat atop a scratched, worn counter, some dangerously close to a deep, stainless steel sink. Cabinets lined the walls, all gleaming in the light; some were padlocked shut. Apparently Bridge had a thing for padlocks. Sherlock wondered if they each had their own keys—they looked identical, but that would be a ridiculously careless move. Most unnerving to Sherlock was a pile in the corner that seemed to contain ropes and chains; they only increased his sense that his presence here was something that Bridge had planned for, and that his stay would be far from enjoyable, to say the least. Sherlock shuddered and flicked off the light. He did not want to see any more of this place.

It felt like an age that he sat in the darkness, and yet when he finally heard footsteps on the stairs, he felt his heart beat faster in something that felt like terror, or so he thought. Sherlock could not recall ever feeling terror before. Unease, perhaps, or apprehension, but before today, he had never had a reason to truly fear something. He could have gone his entire life without the experience.

He heard the click of the lower door's padlock, and a creak as it swung open. Light flooded the room, nearly blinding him, and Bridge closed the door, locking it behind him. He walked to one of the cabinets and tossed the key into it, and then made his way slowly, almost menacingly over to Sherlock's cage. "Now, then," he said, a tremor of excitement running through his voice, "Where shall we begin?"


	5. Queries and Answers

"What are you going to do with me?" Sherlock asked, his voice surprisingly steady. "You can't keep me here forever."

"Can't I?" Bridge asked, amused. He grinned down at Sherlock, clasping and unclasping his hands with what seemed to be nervous excitement. "You have no way of contacting anyone. You have no friends, no connections in London who might come looking for you. You have not phoned a member of your family in months, and when you do it's always reluctant. The few acquaintances you have kept in touch with will not be surprised when you simply stop contacting them. You're a lonely man, Mr. Holmes, and that only makes you more perfect for my research."

"And what exactly is your research?" Sherlock asked, craning his neck up to meet Bridge's eyes. There was no hint of compassion in the man's eyes; they were filled with what seemed to be borderline sadistic glee. Sherlock would have preferred clinical analysis, for the man to study him as an experiment alone, but the amount of joy in the man's eyes suggested that he knew exactly what he was doing—he knew full well that Sherlock was a person, not something to be used as a subject, and that was the thing that excited him. Suddenly, Sherlock regretted his pastime of learning to read people. He wished that he had never started, that he could look into the man's eyes and not see the way he looked at him.

The look radiated pure evil.

"Oh come now, if I told you it would throw off the results for the entire experiment!" The doctor laughed, shaking his head and reaching into his pocket. "You're a clever boy, Sherlock. You should understand that sort of thing." He bent down and unlocked the padlock, pulling open the cage door.

Sherlock considered making a run for it, but no, that was a terrible idea. That the man had left the door key in the cabinet while keeping the key to the cage in his pocket suggested that he did, indeed, have separate keys for each padlock; even knowing where one was kept, he would never make it out all the doors in time. Instead, he inched towards the back of the cage with as much dignity as he could muster, even knowing that it was a futile attempt. Bridge had only to reach in and grab him—

He was expecting the doctor to reach in and pull him out of the cage. What he was not expecting was for the man to seize him by the throat, clenching his hand in a death grip. Sherlock spluttered as he was dragged out of the cage, clawing at the doctor's hand. Bridge shoved him to the tile ground and planted a foot on his throat, applying just enough pressure to make his threat clear. Sherlock stilled immediately. "There now, do you really think you can hide from me in the cage? I thought you were smarter than that, Sherlock." The man rose, wobbling slightly, his foot still on Sherlock's throat. There were three possibilities; he would keep his balance and nothing would happen, he would lose his balance and his foot would slip off Sherlock's neck—or he would lose his balance, fall forward, and crush Sherlock's windpipe. Sherlock elected to keep as still as possible to try to prevent the last of the options. Bridge smiled cruelly, looking down at him with that steady gaze. "There, now. That's better, isn't it?" He withdrew his foot from Sherlock's throat and took a step backwards, his eyes never leaving his victim.

Sherlock sat up carefully, and when Bridge made no move to force him down again, pushed himself to his feet. "I get it. You're not above using force," he said, working to disguise the tremor in his voice. Damn this whole fear business! It was impeding his ability to think straight! "So do you intend to kill me?"

"Kill you?" Bridge looked shocked at the idea. "And destroy the most perfect specimen I have ever come across? No, of course not. You're of no use dead. I simply want your cooperation! If you don't give it to me, you can't expect me to take it lying down, now can you?"

_Yes, I can, _Sherlock thought. It was what decent human beings did, after all. Sherlock may not have been what one would call a people person, but he knew enough to know that forcing cooperation was the epitome of unethical—not that this man would care about that, it seemed. "All right," he said, scrambling for words to buy some time. "I will do what you say, if you promise to quit the forcible methods."

"You're hardly in a position to bargain, Sherlock." Doctor Bridge took a step forward, reaching out and grabbing the collar of his jacket. "No one will come looking for you. Even if you can find every key to every lock in this place, you will never be able to get out." He grinned, that sadistic light flitting about his eyes again. "You are at my mercy, Sherlock. I would suggest you remember that, and don't try to bargain with me when you've got no chips on the table."

"Then you do mean to hurt me." Sherlock refused to dwell on the meaning of the words, simply pushing the syllables out of his mouth. Granted, he had never been one to complain terribly much about pain, but there was a difference between a sprained foot from running in the street and torture at the hands of a madman.

"Only if I need to, be it for research or to ensure your good behavior." Bridge smiled—what was with the man and his smiles at inappropriate moments?—and took another few steps forward, until his face was only inches from Sherlock's own. They were nearly the same height; Sherlock was not used to having to look down only a fraction of an inch to meet someone else's gaze. He did not care for it, and turned his head away. Bridge took the opportunity to push him around and rip off his jacket, balling it up and throwing it off to the side. "Ah-ah-ah," he chastised as Sherlock automatically lunged after it, seizing him around the shoulders and holding him back. "You'll get that back when I am certain that you don't have anything threatening in those pockets."

"I have change, cigarettes, and a lighter, that's all," Sherlock snapped, shoving the other man off him. "And frankly, right now, I could use a smoke." He took a step forward, only to be yanked back by the collar of his shirt.

"You'll just have to quit that little habit cold turkey, I'm afraid. The smell is ghastly, if you must know. If you were anyone else, I would not have put up with you smoking in my house to begin with, and considering your time as a guest is over, I won't put up with it anymore," Bridge hissed. He shoved Sherlock back and stalked over to the coat, fumbling through the pockets and pulling things out. "Change—you won't be needing that," he mused, pocketing it. "Lighter—no. Too dangerous." He pocketed the lighter as well. "As for these," he said, pulling out the pack of cigarettes. "Well, let's neither of us die from lung cancer, shall we?" He tossed the half-empty pack of cigarettes to the ground and stomped on them, grinding his foot into the ground, kicking the flattened pack away when he was satisfied.

Sherlock just watched, knowing that it was useless to try to stop the other man. So, even the simple comforts of his old possessions were to be denied to him. He could not help but take a step back as Bridge advanced back towards him, and felt the edge of the cage press against the back of his thigh.

"No shirt pockets—good," the doctor said, looking him over critically. "Turn out your pants pockets, then."

Reluctantly, Sherlock complied, pulling a crumpled receipt out of one pocket and the keys to his flat out of the other, both of which he placed into Bridge's outstretched hand. "Turn around," the doctor ordered impatiently. Sherlock complied, and Bridge reached a hand into each of his back pockets, coming up empty both times.

"Excellent," Bridge said, grabbing Sherlock's shoulder and spinning him around so that they were face to face again. "It goes without saying that you won't be able to keep those," he said, gesturing to Sherlock's clothes, "but since I have not had time to get anything else suitable for you, they will have to do for the time being."

"Why can I not keep my own clothes?" Sherlock asked, forcing himself to examine the doctor's face again. Glee, anticipation—he could not read anything useful in the doctor's expression.

Bridge chuckled, patting Sherlock's cheek patronizingly. _Don't touch me, _Sherlock thought, forcing himself to keep from flinching. "Do you think I would let you keep any of your possessions? I am not going to perform a full body search on you, no, not today, but how am I to trust that you have nothing hidden away in the seams of your clothes? True, you don't seem like the paranoid sort, but it never hurts to be careful." The doctor shook his head, clearly amused. "But enough chatter. I think I will leave you the rest of the day to settle in, as it is. Come," he ordered, taking hold of Sherlock's wrist and giving it a sharp yank. Sherlock bit back a growl and followed the doctor—no point in resisting until he had some sort of advantage. He followed the doctor to a cracked wooden door situated a small bit to the side of the cage—Sherlock had not thought to look in that direction when he had originally examined the room, empty as it had seemed. "Go ahead and use the restroom now, while you can," Bridge said jovially. "Just so you don't waste your time, there is nothing in that room that could serve as a weapon or an escape route. Of course, if you want to waste your time, then do, by all means." He opened the door and shoved Sherlock into the room, shutting it firmly behind him.

Sherlock glanced back at the door, and then turned to examine his surroundings. Tiny shower, pristine toilet, bare sink with the cupboard doors removed—nothing was under the sink save for spare toilet paper, suggesting that the doctor had removed anything that Sherlock could have gotten his hands onto. The mirror had been pried out of the wall, leaving an ugly expanse of cracked tile in its wake. Sherlock tugged experimentally on one of the tiles; it did not budge. He sighed—he had not expected that Bridge was lying about the room being devoid of anything useful, but it had been a hope. He supposed he should be happy that the man had thought to include a bathroom in his little kidnap set-up; the cage was hardly equipped with such amenities.

Sherlock took his time in the bathroom, hoping that Bridge would not come bursting in, demanding to know what was taking so long. He knew there was only so long he could stall, though; reluctantly, he pulled the door open and stepped back out into the room.

Bridge was nowhere to be seen. Sherlock glanced around the room and stepped quietly towards his coat, still lying on the floor next to his crushed pack of cigarettes. Glancing around, he palmed the pack and wrapped it in his coat, edging over towards the cage. There might be matches around somewhere; he'd figure out how to get rid of the smell if it came down to it. With a furtive glance over his shoulder, he pulled the pack out and stuffed all but two of the flattened cigarettes under the cage, within reach so that he could still get to them by slipping his fingers through the bars. He tossed his coat into the cage—maybe then Bridge would forget to take it, though it was a long shot—and replaced the crushed, now nearly empty pack of cigarettes where they had been. Sherlock glanced around again; no, Bridge was not in the room. Swiftly, he walked to the door and gave it an experimental tug. Padlocked from the outside—of course.

He may as well get a better sense of his surroundings before Bridge came back and locked him in the cage again. He moved quickly towards the cabinets and pulled open one of the unlocked ones. No keys—not that they would have done him any good. An assortment of science equipment rested on the shelves; beakers and graduated cylinders, Bunsen burners and writing implements. It looked like the man had raided a high school science classroom. Shaking his head, Sherlock moved to the next cabinet. A sewing kit and first aid kit sat on the upper shelf, while the lower shelf was stocked with ointments and bandages. Sherlock suppressed a shudder. He moved to the final unlocked cabinet and pulled it open.

Upon seeing the contents of the third cabinet, it was all Sherlock could do to keep his head on straight. Stocked with knives, clamps, and metal rods, it was the beginnings of a torture cabinet. He stared at the instruments, visibly shaking now; if this was an unlocked cabinet, he did not want to see what was in the locked ones. He did not think it was a coincidence that these items were kept in this basement; only someone with a purpose would keep these sorts of things in their laboratory. Sherlock could only guess at Bridge's overall purpose, but he had a feeling that even if he never figured out the man's final goal in his "research", he would have the dubious pleasure of knowing the effects of the cabinet's contents firsthand.

Or would he? Maybe he did not need to experience any of this. Suppose he took one of the knives and ran Bridge through the next time he came into the basement? Sherlock scanned the knives, trying to determine which one would be best for his purpose. There was little point in aiming to cause pain—no, it was most important that he go straight for the kill. He would have to be quick; he would only have one chance. He reached into the cabinet, running his fingers across cold metal. One chance.

And he could never take it back.

If he killed Bridge, there was no going back. Even if he simply incapacitated him, there was a good chance that the man would never fully recover. Sherlock was certain that he would feel no pity for the man himself, were he to inflict such a fate upon him, but the act? It was dreadfully permanent, and he did not have all the information. Better to keep it in mind as a possibility, as a last resort, and leave it for the time being. He glanced at the cage—no, he would not be able to hide a knife under it the way he had hidden his cigarettes; the bolts would not give enough to fit the handle under the floor. That was not an option, then. If he chose to go through with this in the end, he would have to wait for another opportunity. Sherlock closed his eyes and slammed the cabinet shut.

Immediately after he closed the cabinet, he heard the dreaded sound of footsteps on the stairs again.


End file.
